


Gale's Amaranth (Revised)

by spectrum700



Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types, Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins
Genre: Canon Compliant, Capitol, District 13, F/M, Friendship, Gen, Hijacked Peeta, Other, POV Gale, Revised Version, everlark
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-03-12
Updated: 2015-03-12
Packaged: 2018-03-17 12:08:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,974
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3528857
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spectrum700/pseuds/spectrum700
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"What Dr. Aurelius will never understand is that I have no worries. For Katniss, I gave those up a long, long time ago." After Peeta's rescue, Gale's story is left largely untold. While recovering from an injury in District 13, Gale develops an unlikely friendship with Peeta, who is struggling through the aftermath of his hijacking. A revision of the story originally published on FF.net.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Gale's Amaranth (Revised)

Dr. Aurelius wants me to talk. He tells me that if I confide in someone, anyone, I can get some of my worries off of my chest. What Dr. Aurelius will never understand is that I have no _worries_. No fears. For Katniss, I gave those up a long, long time ago.

Through my window in the Capitol hospital, I can make out the regular hustle and bustle in the city streets. Even the scare of Snow's murder can't overpower these people's need to shop. Government overhaul is a mess, but wearing last week's fashion is a travesty. I understand why Peeta hates watching them. Why he longs for windows, and loathes them, too.

Everywhere, there are children. Skipping and jumping and tugging at their parents' arms.  _Mommy, can I have this? Daddy, can I have that?_ So many children that I can't help but hate them, hate all of them, with all my heart, for what they did to Katniss and to Peeta and to Prim, to my family and the Seam, to me.

I don't hate children, not really. But children grow up.

* * *

You do not infiltrate the Capitol, rescue its most valuable prisoner, and expect to get out alive. Sprinting down the narrow hallway, I berated myself for volunteering to give myself up for the baker's son.  _Who are you, Gale Hawthorne? Who do you love?_

_Katniss. I love Katniss. And I'll be damned if I can't save this boy._

I crept down a short staircase and found myself at the entrance of a long, dark passageway. I tuned out the cycles of _buzz_ and  _silence_ ,  _buzz_ and  _silence_ in my earpiece, the steady rhythm of my team's voices, somewhere up above. Several stories below the heart of the Capitol, the air was damp and thick with the promise of mold. I checked the time: ten minutes until the hovercraft would depart for District 13, with or without me. I squinted in the darkness, searching for signs of life, listening for human breathing. And then I caught it — a faint moan not far down the passageway. I crept toward the sound, thankful for my soft footsteps learned from years of hunting.

"Peeta?" I whispered, "Is that you?" I heard no reply and chanced a few more words. "Peeta, it's Gale. Are you down here?" _There_ — a sharp intake of breath and a thin cry. I traced my fingers along the wall until they found a bar, and another, and then the locked handle of Peeta's cell. I fired a shot through the handle and wrenched the door open. My cover blown. Eight minutes.

"Peeta, I'm getting you out of here, but we have to go now," I whispered into the darkness. I sensed movement to my left and froze at the sight of an emaciated boy. Bones, skin on bones, curled into a ball against the cell wall.  _The baker's son._

"Peeta…" I began, but I was lost for words. Peeta turned his head to gaze up at me, his eyes wide, cloudy. I crouched on the ground beside him, catching myself on the tips of my fingers.

"Are you really taking me home?" he whispered, his cracked lips barely moving. I nodded.

"You… you'll need to… Here, let me help you up."

Peeta laughed softly and wheezed. "They took my leg. I can't walk." Sure enough, the prosthetic leg that he had worn since his first Games had been removed, exposing his stump beneath the shreds of a pant leg that appeared to have been ripped away.

I closed my eyes. _How much time? Seven minutes? Six?_

I wrapped my arms beneath Peeta's back and legs and hauled his body over my shoulder. "I'm sorry," I muttered when he cried out in surprise and pain.

"Don't be," he said, his breathing heavy as I kicked open the cell door and carried him into the passageway. I started off in the direction from which I came, but froze at the sound of heavy footsteps on the stairs. Suddenly, the passageway was flooded with light. Voices rising in warning through my earpiece, I dashed off in the opposite direction, praying that there would be an exit on the other end. But in the darkness, I couldn't make out an escape.

"Drop your weapon and give up the prisoner," demanded one of the peacekeepers as they closed in on Peeta and me.  _Could I kill a man?_  Shooting game was natural. Illegal, as I knew better than anyone, but forgivable.

I raised my gun. "I'm a good shot. Stay back, and I won't kill you."

The peacekeepers raised their weapons, and I fired off three bullets.

"Gale, behind you — there's a door," Peeta said, his voice barely audible over the crack of my gun. He lifted his arm and gestured weakly at a heavy metal door in the wall. I lunged for it, and raced up a long, dark flight of steps. A narrow strip of light ran beneath the door at the top, and as I reached for the handle, I heard a single set of footsteps clamoring after me. I surged through a door without looking back, and stumbled into harsh white lights.

"Peeta, what is this?" I whispered, but I knew. Anyone who had watched the mandatory television recaps of the Games would know. Searching for another door, I surveyed the large, matted room, the tables of weapons, rows of targets, ropes dangling in thick knots from the ceiling.

"Straight across," he said, and when I heard the footsteps behind me reaching the top of the stairs, I took off running, Peeta's body thumping against my chest.

 _Three minutes_. "We're going to make it, Peeta," I encouraged him as I pushed open the double doors at the far end of the training center and carried him down another passageway toward sunlight streaming in through an open cargo entrance. A thin, silver hovercraft — District 13's stolen Capitol model — dropped down before us, and extended a ladder toward me, just a few yards away. I raced for it with all of the speed that I could muster, giving the last of my strength,  _for Katniss._  As soon as my fingertips grazed the first rung, electricity held my body fast, sandwiching Peeta between me and the ladder, sweeping us up into the sky.

And there was the pain between my shoulder blades, swift and sharp, lodging itself in my back.

* * *

I woke to find myself in the back of the hovercraft, lying face-down and shirtless on a cold metal table. Warm, latex-covered fingers pealed something rough and sticky from my back, ripping off a few inches of hair. Then, they glossed a soothing ointment over my skin, and taped on a stiff and cool sheet. A bandage, I realized, turning my head to look up at the nurse standing beside me.

"There you are, Mr. Hawthorne," smiling reassuringly. "That should hold until we get back to District 13. It's the best we can do for now. I know you're in pain, and I need to ask you to just hold on. We'll have better painkillers back at the hospital."

"What happened?" I asked. I tried to sit up, but a fierce stabbing in my back stole the air from my lungs and forced me back down onto the table.

"Your shoulder was grazed by a knife just as you reached the hovercraft ladder. Your team said it was thrown by a peacekeeper. You were lucky that you reached the ladder in time for the electricity to grab you, and of course, that we had medical staff and supplies on hand for this trip. You'll receive proper stitches in District 13."

"What about Peeta?" I asked, forcing myself into a sitting position on the edge of the table. "I went down there to get him out. Did he make it? Is he on the hovercraft? Is he okay?"

"Slow down, Mr. Hawthorne," she said. "He's fine. Would you like to see him?"

"Not particularly," I muttered. The nurse raised her eyebrows. "I mean, sure," I corrected myself. "I'll visit with him."  _You volunteered for this mission. You're supposed to at least pretend to like the kid._

Ignoring the pain in my back, I slid off the table and took a few cautious steps forward. I glanced at the nurse, hoping that she might tell me to lie back down. No such luck.

"Just move slowly and be careful, and it'll be fine," she assured me, gesturing to a curtain beside my examination table. I pushed it aside.

"Looks like he's still sleeping," I said as she peered in behind me. Peeta lay on a second table, curled up into a ball with his eyes closed the way I found him in the Capitol. Someone had covered him with a white blanket and washed the dirt from his hair and face.

"He should make a full recovery, thanks to you," the nurse told me, either not taking or ignoring my hint that I wanted to leave Peeta alone. "He seems to have been beaten up quite a bit in the Capitol, but none of those injuries are life-threatening. We'll deal with them in District 13."

"Not life-threatening?" I replied, with unintended venom. "They starved him. Just look at him — he's barely even here."

The nurse consulted her clipboard and spoke softly. "We're trying to keep him hydrated. He doesn't have the strength for solid food yet, so we've been giving him broth. But he'll be fine."

I nodded, but did not take my eyes off of Peeta. There was a terror in his ragged breathing that I couldn't reconcile with the nurse's confidence, a hopelessness in the way he huddled beneath the blanket, as if expecting a blow in his sleep.  _He's broken, and who is to say how badly?_

"Can I sit with him?" I asked the nurse.

"Absolutely. I'll be checking in on some other soldiers who are a bit scraped up, so just know that I won't be far if you need something."

"Thank you."

The nurse exited the curtained room and I took a seat beside Peeta, ignoring the sensation of splitting skin on my back. Nothing that District 13 and their fancy hospital couldn't fix, I was sure.

"Gale?" he whispered, slowly opening his eyes. "It's you, right?"

"Yeah, it's me."

"I never thought you of all people would come to rescue me."

I laughed darkly. "Well, I guess you thought wrong," I muttered.

"Are you okay?" he asked.

"Yeah. Don't worry about me. You're the one who looks half dead."

Peeta shivered. "That bad, huh?"

"Yeah. That bad."

He closed his eyes and clenched the edge of his blanket in his fists, his knuckles whitening.

"Hey," I said. "You'll be fine. Nurse isn't worried about you."

Peeta looked up at me and relaxed his grip on the blanket. He seemed to want to believe me, to accept that he was safe, that the nurse was confident in his recovery. But there was also a distance in his expression that I couldn't place, a fear I couldn't label.  _I'm sure he's got plenty of those. Fears,_ I told myself.  _And well-founded ones._

"Katniss will be happy to see you," I added. "She hasn't been the same without you." The words hurt, but they were true.

Peeta struggled up from the table, straining against his blanket with his weakened body. "I don't want to see her!" he gasped, writhing until his arms gave out and he crumpled back down against the table. I stared at him in shock

"But we rescued you for Katniss! Do you really think I would have risked my life pulling you out of that dungeon if it weren't for her?"

Peeta's breathing quickened and beads of sweat began to form on his face. "I don't care why you rescued me, I don't want to see her!" Thick tears began to well up in his eyes, threatening to spill over.

"Well, if you don't want to see her, then I guess you don't have to," I said, taken aback by his outburst. I glanced around his curtained enclosure, waiting for a nurse to burst in and respond, but no one came.

"Okay," Peeta whispered, his breathing slowing as he sank back into the blanket. "Okay. Thanks, Gale. Thank you." Laying back against the table, he stared up at the ceiling, his eyes still hauntingly wide against his sunken cheeks.

_He's broken in ways we don't understand. This is not the baker's son._

"Peeta… what did they do to you?"

He shook his head almost imperceptibly and closed his eyes. A lonely tear wandered down his cheek.

* * *

Nervous about leaving Peeta unattended, I spent the remainder of the trip back to District 13 gazing out the window above his head. Peeta closed his eyes, but the rapid beeping of the monitor beside him betrayed his inability to sleep. Beneath us, Panem slipped past — factories and mines, rivers and fields. I had missed this on the trip out to the Capitol, a journey consumed by tactical meetings and military preparations. Now, I gazed down at lands that I had never seen.  _A Seam kid dreams of proper food and shelter, not travels to the Capitol._

Twenty minutes before landing, the nurse returned and slid open the curtain. She nodded approvingly when she saw Peeta attempting to rest.

"Beautiful view, isn't it?" she asked, looking up at me.

"Yes," I agreed. "I've never seen any of this before."

"District 13 soldiers tend to travel," she said. "You'll have your chance."

"I hope so," I said wistfully.

"Here," she said, tossing me a clean white t-shirt. "Put that on. And do you think you could help Peeta? I still have to check in with a few more soldiers before landing." I nodded, and caught Peeta's shirt as well.

The nurse slid the curtain shut again, and I looked back out the window, just as we were coming up on the mines of District 12. The hot claustrophobia of my days spent down in those tunnels came rushing back to me. A nightmare I never really shared with Katniss.  _Not a place I ever want to see again._

"Peeta," I said, jostling his arm gently with my palm. "We're almost back in District 13. I've got a fresh shirt for you from the nurse. I'll help you with it."

Peeta made a face and opened his eyes. "I don't need help," he said. "Just..." he tried to sit up again, but collapsed, nearly slipping off the side of the table. I stood and guided him up into a seated position, and gently tugged the blanket away from his chest. Peeta followed the motions of my hands with his eyes and then looked expectantly up at me. Feeling the blood drain from my face, I took a step backwards, and another. Thick red marks draped over Peeta's shoulders, cousins to the ones that decorated my back, but deeper and more layered, crisscrossing his flesh in angry half-healed patterns.

"The nurse said you'll be fine," I whispered, more to reassure myself than Peeta. "Lift your arms."

Cautiously, Peeta raised his arms into the air. They quivered as he struggled to reach higher when I pulled the fresh shirt over his head, letting the soft fabric fall over his shredded skin like the curtain descending on a tragic scene.

"Do you want to talk about it?" I asked. Peeta shook his head.

"You know what it's like," he said. But I wasn't so sure.

* * *

I sat alone on the edge of a table in the District 13 hospital while one of the doctors stitched up my wound. It was hard not to smile, watching Finnick and Annie holding each other across the room, clearly overwhelmed with joy at being reunited. Sharing their happiness was easier than thinking of the way Katniss had brushed past me, just a quick glance to verify that I was alive all she needed to assure herself that my decision to join Peeta's rescue team had been for the best, after all.

"Would you like some more morphling?" the doctor offered, tying off the last stitch in my back.

"No thanks," I declined.

"Suit yourself. You ought to try to rest here. I'll ask one of the nurses to find you a bed for the night."

"Wait," I stopped him as he stowed his clipboard under his arm and moved to walk away.

"Yes, Mr. Hawthorne?"

"Has Katniss asked about me?"

"Not to my knowledge, Mr. Hawthorne. She is undoubtedly busy with Mr. Mellark."

"Okay." I bit my lip and averted my eyes to the floor.  _Busy with Mr. Mellark. Right._

"Mr. Hawthorne, I'm sure she'll come to visit as soon as she has the chance. You're her family, after all."

I nodded and closed my eyes.  _This hoax again_. As far as District 13 was concerned, Katniss and I were cousins, irreparably separated by the bond of blood.

"Call if you need anything, or if you change your mind about the morphling," the doctor reminded me. "The nurse will be here in just a minute."

I lay back and stared up at the hospital ceiling, listening to the steady beeping of someone else's monitor.

_Katniss will come. It's only natural that she would want to see Peeta first. He's been in captivity, but she just saw you yesterday. He's in worse shape, too._

Peeta was a good kid. Just a boy who frosted beautiful cakes back in District 12, who was raised to never know hunger. I didn't like him. But he never deserved to get hurt.

My thoughts were disturbed by the commotion that erupted in the hallway. A team of nurses rushed past me, voices rising.

_"He couldn't have! Peeta Mellark?"_

_"It's true. He tried to strangle Katniss."_


End file.
